This is the dirt-encrusted dollar bill I found at the blueberry barrens. I feel like I need to pass it on, so I think I'll mail it to the next person who leaves a comment on Birch Wisdom. I find money all the time, by the way. I'm lucky like that.

Not sure where it comes from, but Jake and I share a fascination for the NY Jets. I got it into my head that it would be a great father-son deal to go to a game. I looked at ticket prices for when the Jets play in New England. Well, it's a Monday Night game and field level tickets are $987 a piece. The same quality seats at the New Meadowlands are $1500. But if you go to Buffalo (where the Jets play this weekend) you can sit seven rows behind the Jets bench for a $100. I got all cranked up thinking about it and thought, "yes, we'll do it: road trip to Buffalo."

After sleeping on it, however, I woke up feeling as if I just came out of a psychosis. I thought about what it would be like to do 26 hours of driving for a football game, and about how it would probably take me a month to recover. When I spoke to Jake on the phone tonight I couldn't help my curiosity, so I asked him if he would've gone. "Yeah, I'd go," he said.

Moral of the story: I've got the best son on the planet.

This here shanty town is where migrant workers for Cherryfield Foods stay when raking blueberries. I've always wanted to take a picture of it, sort of reminds you that food doesn't just magically appear on grocery store shelves. Oddly, after I took the picture I found a dollar on the ground. It made me think of how some raker was out breaking his back, then lost a bit of his wages. Not an easy life.

Now, my dear mother-in-law: selling houses, hoofing all over India: you've got the Spirit! Right now the fossil is on display in Mrs. Muholland's 3rd grade classroom, but next time you're this way, I'll make sure to show it off. One thing about fossils is that they make you wonder how anybody could hold one in their hands and not believe in evolution.

Well, I'd say that's my opinion; but I'm just stating the facts.

We tortured Jake by taking him to Sam's Club. He's such a good sport, though, he acted as if he was having a good time. Turned out he worked at his new job on Saturday, so he was right ready for some R&R with the 'rents. Jake now has his own cubicle--how American! Lives in a frat and works at a trucking company, which is not exactly what we envisioned when we sent him off to college. Well, we're downright proud of the boy, and, as you can see, he is devilishly handsome.

Jake recommended this little Indian restaurant. Food was delicious and the perfect end to a fun-filled day.

A day we started with a walk at the Orono Bog. The boardwalk you see behind Cara is a loop of almost two miles. As I've mentioned before, this natural splendor is only a couple of minutes from the mall. It's the perfect place to stretch your legs before you get your shopping on.

Thanks to Richard and Matt for the comments. Hard not to be touched by the Tillman story. I've read every one of Krakauer's books, except for the first one he wrote, Eiger Dreams, which is the book that was in Tillman's rucksack. When the movie rights for Into the Wild were purchased Krakauer gave 75% of the proceeds to the McCandless family. Sean Penn (who directed the movie) is also interested in filming Where Men Win Glory. Krakauer has promised Tillman's widow 75% of the money for the movie rights as well as final say as to whether a movie is made. Obviously, like Tillman, he has his own high standard of honor.

Stop the presses! The S.O.S. Plan (actually an accidental by-product of the empty nest experience) has, according to my painfully accurate bathroom scale, led to weight gain. I guess I'll have to write a novel instead. Homebody: The Story of a Man Who Sits Around All Day with Nary a Thought In His Head. Oops, that's me, and a rather boring autobiography.

But if you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. It's the story of former NFL player Pat Tillman who joined the Army after 9/11. He walked away from an offer of $9.6 million to be a grunt for $1200 a month. Who does that? What unfolds is tragic and disturbing, but inspiring as well.

A bit of back story that's not in the book: when Krakauer came up with the idea for writing about Tillman he was told that Tillman's widow was extremely private and would not cooperate. Krakauer called her anyway and she said, "Pat had one of your books in his rucksack when he died." Holy. She ended up turning over all of Tillman's journals to Krakauer and they are beyond compelling.

The next best thing to winning the lottery is writing a successful diet book. You basically come up with a simpleton idea that can be summarized in a sentence, then bloat it out to a couple hundred pages of rah-rah self-help drivel. Right up my alley--so what am I waiting for? A few years ago I had an idea for a diet book for men called Gut-be-Gone (you know, something for the git-r-done crowd). Never did anything with the idea, obviously, but that didn't stop me from dreaming a new scheme. This one is based on my actual own eating habits of late. It's the S.O.S. Plan, where you subsist on salad, oatmeal and smoothies. Anybody want to do the actual work of putting this bad boy together while I sit around plotting the next big thing? No point in me getting my hands dirty; after all, I'm just an idea man.

These aren't just trees, Brother Max, these are Appalacian Trail trees. So why's it look like all the boring pictures I take behind my house? Well, you gotta put the birch in Birch Wisdom, am I right? Do you know that hospital patients with windows facing woods heal quicker and with less complications and that kids who spend time outdoors do better in school? Nature--we need it.

I'm so proud of Jake. Got himself a j-o-b in the accounting department of a logistics company in Bangor. He's really putting it all together--and he's handsome to boot.

Hopefully we'll see Jake this weekend, and if we do I'll be sure to take some shots in case anybody doubts how good-looking the chip-off-the-old-block is--plus my beloved brother will get off my case about my propensity to avoid the human element when taking pictures for this world-famous blog.

This tree was blocking our path. Seeing as how I'd left my chainsaw at home, I had to manhandle it to the side of the trail with my bare hands. Guess that's why they call me "The Grappler."

Mother and daughter re-united after two long weeks of separation. I know, it's hard to believe they're not sisters, but that's what country living can do for a gal.

All kidding aside, the Colby Girl really does get more beautiful by the day.

Happy, happy day. Cara came with me to Caratunk and we hiked toward Pleasant Pond to collect the fossil I found a couple of moons ago. Ernie had warned me about the possibility of the stream rising and carrying it away, but I thought I'd placed it far enough up the bank to have no trouble. Of course, the stream was in fact up a few feet and the fossil was completely submerged. I had a moment of despair, fearing it was lost to the gods, but when I spotted it: pure jubilation.

Weekends just don't come any better than this. We had dinner with Jake in Bangor on Friday night (after which he was off to a bonfire), then lunch with Jessie at Colby on Saturday (following the fossil mission)--both so content and courteous and thoughtful makes me want to shed the tears of joy.

But this is no time for the waterworks; I'll just bask in the moment. Tomorrow I'll post some more photos. For now (look at the time: it's 9:47 P.M. !!!), it's lights out.

I pride myself on leading a boring life, so what's with the blog? I mean, I don't really have all that much to say, certainly not much in the wisdom department. But here we are, scant energy to keep it going, an odd feeling of guilt about letting it drop. So I guess we're in "we'll see" mode.

Today I had my economics class with the kids at school. I was telling them about how a few years ago when I used to ask my 8th grade class what their ambitions were, there was one kid who said he wanted "to live in a van down by the river." I think that's a quote/joke from some television show or something, but he seemed serious about it. (He ended up moving down South). At any rate, this past weekend I read a book called Moneyless Man by a guy who lives in a camper down by the river (in Bristol, England). He uses no cash, but barters and grows food and does some dumpster diving to round out the fun. I wouldn't want to go that far, but, conceptually, it is kind of cool to think about living without money.

It's a love/hate thing, to be sure, but am I alone in wondering how the heck I ended up with so much stuff?

Tonight I ran in the rain. Now I'm dry and comfy in my "loungewear," getting ready to enjoy the meal Cara and I always pictured ourselves eating in our empty nest days: crusty bread and brie with a salad. Simple and romantic with no clean-up. I guess those are really the stages of life: restaurants in your twenties, mac and cheese in your thirties when you have young kids, bread and cheese in your forties when your kids leave home (and then it's on to anything you can put in a blender when you have no teeth).

This past Sunday the Gilkster and I were sitting on the deck of the Sugar Shack when the wind picked up and a birch tree toppled to the ground right before our eyes. It almost felt as though we were intruding on nature and naturally (pun alert!) it brought to mind the old philosophical question which no doubt still makes its way around college campuses: if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it does it make a sound? Well now I know--but if you need to find out for yourself, go sleep in the woods.

Happy Labor Day. Time to be thankful if you have a job--it's rough out there. Speaking of rough, I decided to do the signature workout of the days when I was fit (a decade ago) called the Pyramid. You do one pull-up, two push-ups, three crunches, then two pull-ups, four push-ups and nine crunches, continuing this progression until you reach 10 pull-ups, 20 push-ups and 30 crunches; then you do the same thing on the downside until you're back to 1,2,3. When the workout is complete you will have done 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups and 300 crunches. Back in the days of abs and biceps I could complete the drill in 28 minutes. This morning it took me over an hour, and when I was finished I was both triumphant and nauseous. Nothing a little oatmeal won't cure...
It was interesting to hear that Jessie saw the anti-wind turbine petition on the trail. I saw the same one when Ernie and I were waiting for the ferry to take us across the Kennebec. Then at a lean-to a thru-hiker had left a diatribe about saving rural Maine vs. saving the planet. So, you see, my post was actually a stolen idea. But it is heartfelt.
Well, it has been a glorious summer--made richer by our friends and family in the Birch Wisdom universe (oops, still got that mouse in my pocket).

This morning we had our date with the cool breezes of Downeast Maine. Lovely. Yet on the heels of wistful feelings of the old days in NY with the Sunday Times and bagels and cream cheese. Would I still buy a hard copy of the finger-staining Times if we lived in NY, or just read it for free on-line like I do here? We'll never know, I guess, but my sense is that we move on even if we stay in the same place. I had a professor in grad school who called the NY Times "the white man's burden." I always got a kick out of that. He, the professor, took pride in never reading newspapers or watching the news. Smart man. Because, as we now know--and has been scientifically proven--it's just the same dung, different day.

The mossy path on which we walked when the rain stopped. Earl turned out to be the redneck hurricane lost at sea. He was supposed to drag a cold front in with him, but it's still sticky around here, probably because he got too drunk to show up for the party thrown in his honor. Well, here's to hoping the Sweet has stayed dry during her interlude in the woods prior to the real work of college. I went running today for the first time in a while (now that the balky back is better) and, man, did it feel good to work up a sweat. Cleansing is how it felt, even though I probably smelled like a locker room. Nothing that a cool breeze wouldn't cure, but, as I alluded to yesterday, stacking all of our outdoor furniture in the garage was a guarantee that the winds would not blow.

The calm before the storm. We moved the boats and took in the furniture in preparation for Earl, though something tells me his bark will be worse than his bite. Famous last words, perhaps, but since we're actually prepared, with the generator primed, extra fuel and water, etc., we've probably put him into the jinx. The brains at Colby obviously aren't too worried, since Jessie left this morning for her backpacking trip and the plan is for the group to sleep under a tarp. Hmm, even in my failure to take the storm all that seriously I still believe my Sweet will wake up in a soak.
Easy is fixing us some macaroni and broccoli (comfort food for the Italian set), so we'll be eating at just about our usual bed-time. I guess Cara and I will be living the wild party life now that we have free reign in the empty nest. But back to Judy: sad to say she's returning to Cincy on Tuesday, even though we've implored her to move to Maine. She says there's not enough to do here, but if you check out her blog, The Final Quarter, you'll see that her social calendar would wipe out a person half her age.
I'm not sure where she gets the energy, and it appears to have skipped a generation. Cara, my love, is in the bath at 8:00 and conked out by 9:00. Me, I'd hit the sack at 7:00 if they'd let me.

What's special about this trail is that it's in City Forest, which is a hidden gem literally a couple of minutes from the disgustication (made up word) known as the Bangor Mall. Talk about worlds colliding--or actually just the opposite, since I'd wager that 99% of shoppers don't even know this oasis exists. I enjoyed an early morning walk here on the day we drove Jessie to Colby (we'd spent the night before at the grand hotel known as the Country Inn, which is actually just about my favorite lodging facility as not only can you walk to the trail, but there's free waffles. I enjoyed two, one before the walk and one after). Anyway, it was clear the moment we arrived at Colby that it is the place for Jessie, and so far she is exceedingly happy.